Me Against The World
by Drew Blackstone
Summary: A journey started partly against my will, a ridiculously optimistic girl, and many, many other things I never expected to enter my life. My name is Drew Blackstone, and this is the story of how everything changed, for better or for worse (and of fate using me as a punching bag).
1. Chapter 1

**Okay... Here's another thing I wrote a couple years ago, back by popular demand (well actually, someone on another site asked about it and a friend encouraged me to post it-but two people is enough for me) and under a new name, with minimal editing. I'm not sure what my vision for it back then was, or even if I had a vision for it, but I'm gonna take it and run with it. So here we are. Criticism, questions, comments, opinions, and flames are all very welcome.**

My name is Drew Blackstone, and the world is against me. I can't say that I blame it. In my fourteen years of life, I've done some things I'm not proud of. For example, I get by on thievery. Not the most noble way to live. But it beats letting myself or my absol starve, so that's how we live.

I'm just a thieving low-life.

And our story starts here, with the seemingly routine robbery that changed everything. I was standing with my back against the outer wall of a building, in a sort of alley, trying to blend in and hoping no one noticed my presence. I was waiting, preparing to cause a distraction and run when I heard my signal. And I knew the perfect distraction.

And then I heard my signal- the usual shout of, "Thief!"

Remember that absol I mentioned a minute ago? I spotted her then, rushing out of the nearest building with a small loaf of bread held carefully in her jaws.

Quick as a flash, I darted out to aid my partner in crime. There was a smallish cart nearby, which had been pulled to its location by a rapidash. Spooked by the sudden chaos, the fire horse pokemon reared up and bolted, knocking over the cart it had been hitched to in the process. Some hapless guy then ran after what he might or might not have realized is one of the fastest Pokemon out there. And did I mention what was in the cart?

Flour. Somehow it managed to go everywhere, making quite the distraction if we ran now. But we could do so much better.

"Razor Wind!" I commanded the absol. "But don't hurt anyone!"

Hey, just because I'm a thieving low-life doesn't mean I don't have morals.

With a toss of her head, she flung the bread in my direction and I caught it with ease. She then launched her attack at the cloud of flour, which somehow created this awesome flour-nado I can't even begin to describe.

We took a second to admire the chaos we had created. And then we ran.

Apparently the poor rapidash got its reins caught in some trees, and the guy I guessed was its trainer was attempting to detangle the panicking fire-type. He shot us a glare as we ran past him, which I guess was understandable given his current situation.

We eventually came to our current preferred place to shelter, a peaceful little clearing in the woods where a creek flowed nearby. Finally letting myself relax, I slumped against a tree and took a moment to catch my breath.

"Nicely done, Angel." I praised once I had just about gotten my breath back.

I tried not to use the nickname in public. I refused to give the people searching for me one more incriminating detail, nor ruin my "pint-sized tough guy" image. But when we were alone, I could be as affectionate to my angelic little accomplice as I wanted.

She licked my unscarred cheek, and I ruffled her neck fur in return. Then I turned my attention to the food we had stolen. It wasn't much, but it would be enough for tonight. Bowing my head, I silently thanked Victini for taking our side. I divided the loaf in half, then split one half between the two of us.

We ate quickly and in silence, fortunately undisturbed this time. A lot of rookie trainers frequented this place, so it was only logical that we would sometimes run into them. And then the "our eyes met, let's fight!" pestering would start. Fortunately most were pushovers, easy to scare or fight off, and Angel enjoyed the occasional battle.

Presently, Angel curled up beside me and put her head on my lap. She had been with me for a year now, and had grown from a helpless pup to a fierce and loyal partner, and not a day went by that I wasn't grateful to have her by my side. The sky had grown darker, and we enjoyed a peaceful moment together as we gazed up at the stars.

"I don't say it often enough, Angel," I murmured, "but I am so proud of you."

She purred, and indicator that she liked that statement. And on that heartwarming note, we said nothing more before letting sleep take us.

Little did we know that our lives were about to be turned upside-down, and nothing would ever be the same again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Thanks so much for the feedback, all of you! I'm super grateful for it, even if some of the blunter criticism stings a bit. I'm still recovering from the shock of actually getting reviews. Just... thanks everyone. I've made a few minor revisions to the first chapter now.**

 **And just to clarify (because it seems I didn't actually make it clear) Drew is male. And he's not necessarily the nicest guy around, at least initially, since he's not really concerned for anything except looking after his own.**

After how much attention Angel and I had undoubtedly drawn to ourselves the previous day, it occurred to me that perhaps it was time to move on. But I couldn't make that decision alone.

"Angel?"

At the sound of her name, she looked at me expectantly.

"We should probably head somewhere else," I said, attempting gentleness for once in my life, "I get the feeling we've been a scourge on this town long enough, and it's so small that they've definitely noticed us. Would you be okay with travelling a little ways?"

Angel gave me the best response I could have hoped for. She barked cheerfully, enthusiasm visible in her crimson gaze, and nodded. I never would've guessed she harbored such wanderlust.

Now I had to decide where we should go. We could go for a larger town-from what I'd heard, Petalburg was relatively close, and it stood to reason that Rustboro wasn't much further than that. Maybe we could even try going straight and find a job somewhere. I wondered briefly if old Norman had retired yet, which led to further wondering about whether his son had taken the gym over, what type he specialized in, and if he'd be seeking gym trainers, before I was jerked out of my reverie via taking a poké ball to the face.

"Okay, _ow,_ " I muttered, "where'd that even come from?"

A boy who might've been a little younger than I was appeared. I could only guess the ball was his, but if he planned on retrieving it, he clearly changed his mind when he caught sight of me. His pale blue eyes regarded me warily, as if I were one of those feral pokémon that had caused problems in another region several years ago. So for one reason or another, he was definitely afraid of me.

I casually picked up the ball, which had landed not too far away. "I presume this is yours?"

He hesitated, before nodding timidly.

I tossed it so that it landed directly at his feet. "Then take it and leave," I said curtly.

The kid seemed perfectly ready to do just that, when both of us heard what sounded like something big coming our way. Naturally, he did the smart thing and bolted. Also naturally, I did the stupid thing and held my ground.

And then a pokémon burst out into the clearing. It was burly and light brown, with a darker brown mane and three tails that it kept whipping itself with for some reason. So what was probably the only tauros in the Hoenn region was loose, angry, and coming straight at me. Of course.

I darted out of the way, only to feel a flash of pain as I was stricken by one of his tails. Blocking out the stinging pain, I realized I needed to give Angel a command.

Angel didn't wait for a command. She launched her usual Razor Wind attack, and then leaped onto the tauros and clung to its back. She was now lashing out with both tooth and claw, fighting with a viciousness that almost made me pity the tauros that had tried to kill me moments earlier.

I was just about to order her to back down so we could make a break for it, when an unfamiliar voice said, "that's enough! Ferdinand, return!"

The tauros vanished in a beam of red light, and Angel hit the ground with a confused grunt. We both turned in the direction of the voice.

A blue-eyed brunette who I guessed to be a bit older than myself stood there, holding a great ball and looking slightly rattled.

"That absol of yours is... something else," she said, sounding about as shaken as she looked.

I wasn't sure whether I should take that as a compliment or not, so I just nodded in agreement. "She sure is, and she really doesn't like seeing her trainer get hurt."

"Oh, you're hurt?" Her concern immediately shifted. "I'm so sorry. Just give me a second." She immediately started rummaging through a bag.

"No, I'm fine," I insisted, shaking my head, "really."

She clearly wasn't convinced. "What happened to your arm, then? And your face?"

"Well," I said, "my face has been like this for two years. Thanks for noticing. My arm, on the other hand, you're right about. But it's really no big deal."

Her embarrassment was immediately obvious. The poor girl was even too flustered to apologize for accidentally insulting my face. She eventually said, "I'm taking Ferdinand back home. I'll be coming back though, so don't move."

Normally I would take that as an obvious _I'm going to go get law enforcement and turn you in, so run if you value your freedom_ , but she seemed to have no idea who I was. And I had no idea who she was.

And despite everything, I wanted to.

 **Please let me know about any mistakes you spot. My beta reader/editor is currently sick and I'm sleep-deprived, so it's likely that I messed up somewhere.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Ugh. I'm sorry this is short and terrible (much like our protagonist, who is like 5'4 and you've seen his personality).**

Sometimes I wondered how I got myself into the sort of situations I did. Not many believed the myth about absol being harbingers of doom anymore (although there were some interesting stereotypes about their trainers), and Angel generally averted more problems than she caused, so my problems were most likely due to my own pride, recklessness, and incredible knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

So here I was, having agreed to travel with a girl I barely knew, who seemed nice enough but was perfectly capable of stabbing me in the back the second I dropped my guard. She had introduced herself as Lara Seagle. The tauros was her father's, and had escaped during the chaos in town yesterday (which I feigned ignorance toward, and was rewarded with an explanation that made me sound like a very flamboyant criminal mastermind). She had volunteered to go look for it, and in the process, ran into yours truly.

We soon found out that we both shared a terrible sense of direction.

It turns out that I was right about Petalburg being nearby, because we somehow managed to arrive there at dusk.

"Well, we made it," Lara observed. I noticed that she didn't sound particularly pleased about it, but had no idea what to do with that knowledge.

"That we did," I said, "so what now?"

The concerned look she gave me indicated that was the wrong thing to say. But she just said, "I guess we find a pokémon center and see if we can spend the night there."

And then a cop approached us. Law enforcement being one of my fears, I let out an undignified squeak of alarm and stepped behind Lara.

"We were just looking for the pokémon center," Lara explained, "could you please point us in the right direction?"

The officer did just that, gesturing toward a red and white building. "It's right over there," she said, "is your friend okay?"

"Oh, he's just shy," Lara answered, "thank you, officer."

And with that, we were on our way. I had a feeling that I would be questioned about that incident later.

After handing our pokémon over to be healed, Lara asked if there was a room available. Fortunately, there was, although I'm pretty sure the nurse only allowed this arrangement because Lara and I could narrowly pass for siblings. We waited in the lobby, observing the three other trainers that were present. The two boys were debating lightheartedly about whether dustox or beautifly was better, while a girl a little further away was petting a small fire-type pokémon I recognized as torchic.

Lara approached the girl, who understandably took a moment to look away from what was undoubtedly one of the cutest pokémon I had ever seen, and they started a conversation. One of the debating boys then took notice of me.

"You look like you have experience, isn't dustox better?"

It occurred to me that Lara and I would be encountering this a lot. Being four or five years older than most beginners in Hoenn, they'd think we'd been around. What was that saying? Fake it 'til you make it? Of course, I could just say both pokémon were useless, but who would that impress?

"Depends on what you're using it for," I said, "dustox can withstand more attacks and poison the opponent, so it's definitely better in combat-"

"I knew it!" the dustox kid interjected with a triumphant look at his friend.

"But beautifly has a more appealing moveset and appearance, making it better for contests," I finished, feeling a twinge of irritation at being interrupted. Kids.

The beautifly kid suddenly looked more interested. "So which do you do?" he inquired, "battles or contests?"

"Contests," I answered without thinking. Not liking where this conversation was headed, I retrieved the poké ball containing Angel and took my leave.

The room Lara and I were to spend the night in was substantially nicer than most of the places I'd slept recently. I had woken up with a wurmple on my face the other day, and the odds of that happening here were probably much lower. It was also a whole lot cleaner.

When I sent out Angel, she glared at me.

"Sorry." I knelt down in front of her, welcoming her to bite, scratch, or otherwise punish me for my betrayal. She hated being put in the ball—not enough to let herself out, but enough to be very irritated when I let her out again. She looked me over, gave me a tentative sniff, then turned around and curled up on the other side of the room. With a final mutinous look, she closed her eyes and proceeded to pretend I didn't exist. That was the kind of punishment I deserved—what, at least from her perspective, I had essentially done to her.

Knowing that all I could do was wait until she forgave me, I sighed in resignation and went to bed.


	4. Chapter 4

**How do people feel about timeskips and PoV swaps? I know I'm going to be doing the former for pacing reasons, but every rewrite of this I seem to alternate between doing the latter and not.**

Lara insisted on discussing a plan over breakfast, which involved a lot of debating with herself aloud while I mostly just listened and nodded from time to time. Finally, we concluded that since we'd both need at least another pokémon to strengthen our respective teams, we'd focus on that.

"So it's settled then?" Lara said.

I nodded.

"Great." Lara smiled. She seemed far more cheerful than she had been yesterday, and at this point I wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not. "So when should we set out?"

"I'm ready when you are, I guess."

* * *

I soon found that Lara didn't fight the pokémon she wanted on her team. Instead, she tried to persuade it to join her with words. Her partner, an orange and black canine she called Sammy, was barely even on standby—he was playfully scuffling with Angel a couple feet away. Darn it, that meant I didn't have Angel on standby either.

Unabashed by a surskit's earlier rejection, she was now trying to convince a lotad while I watched with both curiosity and amusement.

"You'll see lots of new places, and you'll get stronger, and you'll make new friends, and you can always have food."

See why I agreed to travel with her?

"So, what do you say?" she asked the little water-and-grass-type.

At that moment, I felt something brush against my leg and looked down. A zigzagoon had approached, and was looking up at me expectantly.

"Hi?" I said hesitantly. Angel noticed what was going on, but didn't make a move, instead eyeing the newcomer warily.

Dark brown eyes continued to regard me, as if the scruffy normal-type wanted something. I knelt so I was closer to eye level. "What's up?"

He pawed the poké ball at my waist, and I guessed what he was trying to tell me. "You want to join us?"

"Zig!" he cried with a vigorous nod.

He wasn't exactly what I had been hoping for, but a zigzagoon would be useful if we had to go back to thievery. And it was objectively cute, which would have advantages no matter what.

"Okay then, mind if I call you Zander?"

He barked agreeably. It looked like Zander and I would get along just fine.

Angel padded up to our new partner, regarded him with a combination of suspicion and curiosity, then made a low barking sound that I guessed indicated gruff approval. At any rate, Zander seemed completely unfazed, which was probably a good sign. I just had to hope Angel would get acclimated to him over time.

I thought for a moment I spotted something in my peripheral vision, but when I looked there was nothing there. I dismissed it as my eyes deceiving me. Regardless, I jumped a little when Lara addressed me. "How's it going?"

I motioned toward Zander. "Nicely enough."

"Aw, he's so cute!" she said, stooping to ruffle his fur. He seemed to enjoy the attention, closing his eyes and purring in contentment.

I nodded in agreement. "He'll do great in contests."

Lara suddenly looked taken aback. "You mean when you said that, you were _serious_?"

"I never joke about my masculinity, Lara," I said solemnly, "or apparent lack thereof."

"I'm sorry," she said. _What for?_ "it's just... you really don't seem like the type. And wasn't there a famous coordinator named Drew like, years ago?"

I nodded. "My mother was a fan."

From the look on her face, I figured she didn't like the implications of _was_. At least combined with what she had probably inferred of me thus far. She seemed to realize the atmosphere was getting a little awkward, and she changed the subject accordingly. "Do you think Angel would get along with a poochyena?"

Had I said Angel's name in front of Lara? Apparently. "So long as it wasn't a threat to me—or to me paying attention to her—probably," I answered, just grateful for the change of subject.

"Good. Sammy's pretty much the same way, so I guess we won't have too much trouble."

From this, I deduced that she had caught a poochyena. I figured she'd caught the lotad as well, and was wondering if I should look around for a wurmple or something when a ralts appeared in front of me.

Lara gave an amused smile. "Well, it looks like you might have a new friend."

I regarded the little green and white pokémon. "So how about it? You've probably heard at this point, but new sights, companionship, and an opportunity to get stronger are the main benefits. Also food."

The ralts hesitated briefly before nodding.

Well, that was easy. Which made me think things were about to get a whole lot harder.

We soon decided to head back to town, and discovered that Petalburg's gym leader was away—visiting family in Slateport. Lara shrugged this off. "Lily will have the advantage against Rustboro's gym anyway, and it's only a couple days' travel from here."

So that was that. We were then on our way.

* * *

In Petalburg Woods, Lara suggested a battle. After all, both of us had new allies. I consented to it, and once we found a clearing with enough space, we did just that.

"Zander, let's go!" I called upon the normal-type.

"Kira, come on out!" Lara sent in a poochyena.

After a few exchanges of tackles, Zander collapsed. After checking that he was okay and praising his efforts, I returned him to the safety of his poké ball.

I nodded to Lara, who was praising the little dark-type. "Nicely done. Guinevere, it's your turn!"

No sooner did the ralts appear on the field that Kira growled at her and she vanished with a beam of red light. She had called herself back into the poké ball.

"I guess Kira scared her," Lara said. She gave me an apologetic look. "Sorry."

This was going to be even harder than I thought.


	5. Chapter 5

While Lara headed off to face Rustboro's gym leader, I made the (probably unwise) decision to take a look around town. Angel stayed close by my side, while Zander scampered around, seemingly chasing every sight, sound, and scent that interested him. Meanwhile, Guinevere remained in the safety of her poké ball.

All was going well until someone collided forcefully with me, knocking us both to the ground.

"Arceus!" exclaimed the stranger.

I stood, brushing myself off and smirking. "You can call me Drew." I'd waited years for a chance to say that.

He jumped to his feet and glared at me. I got the feeling he wasn't one for blasphemy. "You again!"

So he recognized me from somewhere. With his jet-black hair, piercing blue eyes (which were still giving me an icy glare), and noble face, I felt like I should've recognized him. But I was drawing a blank.

"Do I know you?"

He huffed indignantly. "Luke Knight, of the Sinnoh region," he said as if his name and home region were something to be proud of. Typical Sinnoh arrogance. "We crossed paths between Petalburg Woods and that little town where you were causing havoc a few days ago."

Oh, _now_ I remembered. Not that I'd flatter him by admitting it. "Doesn't ring a bell."

Seeing his regal face so annoyed was worth it. "Nice absol, by the way," he said, "mind telling me where you stole it from?"

Ouch. That was low. A growl started in Angel's throat, as if she had been personally insulted—which she kind of had.

" _She,_ " I responded, barely suppressing my own irritation, "was obtained through perfectly legitimate means. Not that it's any of your business anyway."

"Violations of the law are the business of anyone who witnesses them," he retorted, "not that I'd expect someone like you to care."

At this point, we were getting some interesting looks from passerby. He didn't seem to notice, and I was used to that kind of thing.

I looked incredulously at Angel. "Can you believe how pretentious this guy is? He thinks he's so much better than us, even though he was cowed by that tauros _and_ he was the first one here to turn to insults."

I must've pushed him a little too far, because he took that moment of distraction to punch me in the stomach. I doubled over, briefly overcome by pain, before forcing myself to stand upright. I couldn't give him the satisfaction of taking me down like that (although I was admittedly surprised by his pragmatism, and he packed an impressive punch). I gave him a weak smile. "Is that the best you've got?"

He looked perfectly ready to punch me again, but was stopped when a brunette ran up to him. "Luke? What's going on?"

"Nothing," he said, sounding perfectly calm, "I was just teaching this filthy ba-"

"Language," she interjected. I got the feeling they'd been through this before.

He nodded morosely. "My apologies. I was just teaching this _person_ a lesson."

"You sure about that?" I inquired, "because it felt more like you were punching me out of frustration."

Before he could react, the girl lightly touched his arm. "Luke, let's just go. There's no point in wasting your time on this jerk."

He was silent for a moment. "You're right, Melody. He's c- I mean, he's just not worth it."

They walked off, and I was left to wonder what he had stopped himself from saying. The number of possible insults was astounding when I thought about it. It would probably be better if I didn't think about it.

Zander darted up to me and dropped a potion at my feet. "Zig?"

"Thanks, Zander," I said, kneeling to pet his head, "I'm sure this'll come in useful later."

It seemed like a good time to meet back up with Lara. We had agreed earlier that we'd do that at the pokémon center, so with Angel at my side and Zander not far behind, we headed there.

As soon as we entered the bedroom, Angel nuzzled my hand in a last show of affection before going to greet Sammy. So Lara had gotten there first. Zander took a few moments to sniff around before going to sleep in a corner.

Lara was sitting on one of the beds, a brush in hand and Kira on her lap. She looked up from brushing the little dark-type to acknowledge our presence. "You're all scraped up," she said as soon as she got a look at me, "what happened?"

"Tripped." What she didn't know wouldn't hurt her. I handed over the potion Zander had found. "Zander picked this up."

She looked skeptical—about which statement I wasn't sure, maybe both—but she accepted the potion and put it in her bag. She then regarded me with a fond and exasperated gaze. "What am I going to do with you?"

"You don't have to do anything," I answered curtly, "I can take care of myself just fine."

She flinched, and I felt the slightest twinge of guilt. "If you say so." She sounded doubtful.

It was generally to my benefit that people underestimated me, but for some reason I didn't like this. After that run-in with Knight, though, I didn't really feel like starting another argument. I figured it would be best to shrug it off for now.

"How did your gym battle go, by the way?" I had forgotten I was supposed to ask, and the question seemed like safer territory.

"Roxanne didn't make it easy, but we won," she said, "Lily did very well."

"That's nice." I hoped that was an okay response. "Where to next?"

Lara pulled out a map. "There's two different routes that lead to Slateport from here," she said, "we could head east through Verdanturf-"

"No," I said bluntly, before realizing there was probably a better way to put it. "What's our other option?"

"A family friend has a boat," she answered, seemingly opting to ignore my little outburst, "he'd probably be happy to take us to Dewford Island and then to Slateport City from there."

That didn't sound too disastrous. I gave a satisfied nod. "Sounds like a plan."

 **I finally introduced two more characters that might be important later. Yay. Sorry if how dialogue-heavy this chapter is bothers anyone.**


	6. Chapter 6

Not much worth mentioning took place at Dewford Island. I caught a zubat, Lara caught an aron and won her gym battle. I actually hung around to watch that one, and it was an interesting fight. After that, we traveled to Slateport.

Which was how I ended up in my current situation, standing backstage at a contest hall and waiting to hear my name. We had trained for this, but I wasn't prepared for such an audience. There were so many people out there. I was finding it a little hard to breathe.

"Nervous?" I jumped at the sound of Lara's voice.

"A little," I responded, painfully aware of the understatement.

She put a hand on my shoulder, and I fought the temptation to shrug it off. "Don't be," she said gently, "pokémon pick up on their trainer's feelings, so if you're nervous, Angel will be. Just stay calm. You'll do great out there."

I had to admit she was right. I took a deep breath, composing myself to the best of my ability. _We've come this far, there's no sense losing our nerve now. We can do this._

Lara nudged me. "You're on." She smiled. "Break a leg. That's an expression," she added when I gave her a confused look.

* * *

"All right Angel, show 'em what you're made of!"

Fortunately, Angel had consented to being put in the ball temporarily, and now she came out with a brilliant flash. I had spent a solid hour brushing her in preparation for this, and was pleased to see it made the move more impressive. Her bright white fur was almost sparkling.

At my command, she then used double team, creating an illusory duplicate on either side of herself. I hoped. To be honest, I was a little unsure which was the real one.

"Now use slash!"

Confirming which was the real Angel, the middle one whirled around, disintegrating both illusions in a single fluid movement. We'd spent hours perfecting that one.

"Now let's finish up with razor wind!"

She did just that. We both bowed, allowing a moment to take in the applause before leaving the stage. I had been only dimly aware of everything and everyone else that entire time.

* * *

Fortunately, we made it to the battle stage. I was matched against a little brunette that I vaguely recognized from somewhere. She sent out an eevee, and I knew better than to assume size would give Angel a major advantage. The smaller normal-type would have agility on its side, as well as the unpredictability characteristic of normal-type pokémon. Perhaps I should have paid more attention during the previous round.

"Viola, use swift!"

"Angel, counter with razor wind!"

Both pokémon launched their attacks, Angel's razor wind disintegrating the swift. It even managed to damage the eevee, although it was still standing.

"I won't let you get away with that! Quick attack!"

The eevee rushed at Angel, and I acted on the first command that came to mind. "Double team!" It couldn't do damage if it didn't know which one to hit.

The girl seemed unfazed. "I thought you'd try that. Swift again!"

Before Angel could even try to dodge or counter, the star-shaped rays struck.

 _How did it know which was the real one?_ I wondered, before remembering that some attacks, such as magical leaf and feint attack, would never miss their mark. _Swift must be one of them._ Angel shook off the blow, but I knew we had lost points for that. We'd have to try harder.

It all went downhill from there. Though both sides were still standing when time ran out, Angel and I had lost significantly more points. I had to give that girl credit—she was tougher than I had expected.

I remembered that my namesake had always accepted loss gracefully. I was not my namesake, but I refused to let anyone (especially Angel, who had fought so hard) see my disappointment. I managed a halfhearted smile. "You did great, Angel. Let's go."

And with that, we left the stage.

* * *

Lara greeted me with a sad smile and a hug, which I probably would have pulled away from were I not too tired to even protest. "You two were fantastic out there."

"Apparently we weren't fantastic enough," I remarked, a little bitterly. Then I shrugged. "We'll just have to be more prepared and do better next time."

Lara grinned. "That's the spirit!" She hugged me again, and again I was too weary to do anything but let her.

We watched as the girl who defeated me went on to win the contest. I wasn't sure if that should make me feel better or worse about losing to her. But when we met outside the contest hall, I had to congratulate her. "That eevee is pretty great."

She looked as if she was trying to overcome some dislike of me, but she still said, "thanks. Your absol isn't half bad either."

I realized why she might dislike me when a familiar face approached. Knight. He stared at me for a second, but didn't say anything.

Lara watched us with confusion, before asking, "you all have met each other before?"

"In Rustboro." I gestured toward Knight, who was now giving me a strange look. "This is what I tripped over."

He appeared somewhat offended. "Not the best way to put it," he said, "but yes, that is basically what happened."

Lara blinked. "Okay then." I didn't fully understand this reaction, since it wasn't a particularly odd statement, but I had never understood girls.

We went our separate ways. I could feel someone's stare burning my back, and I guessed it was Knight. He had done a lot of glaring at me so far. I wasn't sure what I had done to offend him so badly, and I intended to ask what his problem was next time we crossed paths.

But then, I wasn't sure why I even cared.


	7. Chapter 7

While on our way to Mauville, Lara suggested we take a break. I complied, as Angel seemed to like the idea.

We found a spot where there was a fair amount of shade and let the rest of our pokémon out. Guinevere cautiously surveyed her surroundings before apparently deeming them moderately safe, teleporting onto my shoulder instead of into her poké ball. Zenith, who had proven herself worthy of the name by being the most zen zubat I had ever met, landed in the darkest patch of shade she could find and stayed there. Lily seemed to prefer the sunlight, and situated herself in the nearest patch of sun. Sammy looked at Kira and gave a quiet bark, which seemed strangely like a warning, before leaving the poochyena alone and approaching Angel. The pair curled up together, watching the others.

Zander zigzagged off into a nearby patch of tall grass, only giving me enough time to say his name before he disappeared. He was quick to return, approaching Aaron (a very creative name for an aron, I had said to Lara) with his find. I wasn't sure why, but he had started frequently presenting the less useful items he found to the little steel-type. Lara seemed to understand it, but she wouldn't tell me and seemed amused that I hadn't figured it out yet. That in and of itself was weird, come to think of it.

"It's nice seeing them all happy," Lara said, startling me slightly.

"Yeah," I replied. It really was.

"So, your next contest is soon."

"Yeah." I didn't want to think about it, but it was true.

"Any idea who you're going to use?"

"Yeah." I planned on using Zenith if I could get around her aversion to sunlight. She had some interesting moves. If I couldn't, I might use Zander or Angel, but Guinevere was too timid for it. I gently removed the ralts from my shoulder, holding her more securely in my arms. That issue would be a little harder to solve.

"You've answered me with 'yeah' three times in a row."

"Yeah?" I hadn't even realized that.

"Are you even listening?"

"Yeah." Well, I was. I probably could have come up with a better response though.

"Drew, I'm serious."

"Yes," I said, finally breaking the pattern. "I've been listening. I'm using Zen for the next contest, in case you'd like to know."

"Interesting choice," Lara responded.

"Yeah."

I got a laugh out of her that time. "Well, I'm sure you can make a good performance with her. Have you figured out what to do about the whole no sunlight thing?"

"Yeah," I answered, promising myself it would be the last time. "It's simple, I just have to get her to evolve. Golbat has no trouble with sunlight."

Lara seemed uncertain. "If you think you can pull it off, I guess that'll work."

It sounded like she was questioning how capable I was, but I let it slide. "Would you help me train her?"

She flashed a playful smile, and I knew what she was going to say before she said it. "Yeah."

 **Yeah.**

 **Sorry y'all had to wait so long for a really short chapter consisting mostly of dialogue and a stupid joke. I'll do better next time. I'm having to prepare for college, so I haven't spent much time on this. I'm probably gonna be slow with updates for a while, but this fic _will_ go on. So don't give up on me.**


	8. Chapter 8

**Something mildly obscene is vaguely mentioned here. Also I'm sorry for taking 3000 years to write anything. Hopefully the length of this chapter makes up for it a bit.**

* * *

"I'm going to regret this, aren't I?"

I looked up from my third cup of coffee. "Probably." It didn't even occur to me that Lara had just said something uncharacteristically negative. The caffeine must've been messing with my head already.

We had made it safely to Mauville, and I had decided to become nocturnal. It was the best way I could think of to get time to train Zenith. I figured that the hardest part would be staying awake all night the first time, and Lara offered a way to help. Nice girl. It was almost suspicious.

"I'm cutting you off after this one," she said adamantly. "I'm afraid you're going to have a heart attack or something. This much caffeine can't be healthy, especially since you aren't used to it."

"There's worse ways to go," I said with a dismissive shrug.

"Drew!" she scolded suddenly, making me jump. "Don't say things like that!"

"O-kay," I said, deeply startled. "Sheesh. Sorry."

* * *

"Now confuse ray!" I exclaimed. This training session was going beautifully.

Zenith summoned two glowing spheres and sent them toward her sparring partner. Zander blinked in confusion, then ran (in an unusually straight line) into the nearest tree. Poor guy.

"You okay, buddy?" I asked the disoriented normal-type.

He seemed to come to his senses, swiftly zigzagging towards Zenith.

"Zen, hit him with wing attack!"

She obliged, striking Zander forcefully with one wing then the other.

Zander rolled over on his back, as I had told him to do when he surrendered.

"Beautiful! Both of you did amazingly!" I was grinning so forcefully that it hurt. I walked over to the two and ruffled Zander's fur, both to praise him and check for any scrapes that might be hidden under his bushy coat. Zenith landed on my head and did the closest thing to nuzzling me her zubat anatomy would allow.

Spraying Zander with a potion to be on the safe side, I returned him to his ball for some well earned rest. I looked over to where Angel had been watching the session unfold. "You want to try?"

She leaped eagerly to her paws.

* * *

A hard kick to the abdomen was responsible for waking me up. Not wanting to get up, I groaned softly in irritation and shifted my position to prevent it from happening again. I could feel the warmth of Angel's body pressed against my back. We weren't in any danger unless she let me know.

"Wow, he's really out," said a familiar voice. Knight.

"Was that necessary?" asked another familiar voice. What was her name again? Had I ever caught her name?

"I sincerely doubt it, but I would like to know what he's doing here, passed out in the open at six-thirty in the morning." His voice was matter-of-fact. I remembered that I had wanted to ask him something, but I didn't feel like getting up. "It's also probably worth noting that that girlfriend of his is nowhere in sight."

"Lara is _not_ my girlfriend," I muttered just loudly enough for them to hear. The possibility had never actually crossed my mind until he brought it up.

There was a pause. "He's awake?" what's-her-name said.

Knight nudged me with his foot. "Get up then, so we can have a proper conversation," he said gruffly. At that moment Angel moved and I heard a growl. She was awake then.

I decided that he might try kicking me again if I didn't, so I complied. Or at least I tried to, but I was only partially awake and could hardly stand. My head was pounding. Was this some kind of caffeine hangover?

What's-her-name looked at me, then at Knight. "Maybe we should all just sit. Meet him halfway, in a sense?"

I doubted he liked the idea, but he did seem to like the way she said it. "Fine."

So there we were, three teenagers sitting on the outskirts of Mauville, about to have a conversation about Mew-knows-what way too early in the morning. While I was practically hungover. I wasn't sure why I had agreed to this.

"First things first," I said, looking at Knight, "What do you have so strongly against me?"

He looked surprised for a moment. "People like you ruin the economy," he answered.

Well. I had never heard _that_ one before. "Are you serious? I asked, bewildered. "You're what, twelve?"

"Thirteen," he corrected.

"Same difference." I waved him off. "Besides, you're not even from here, why do you care about Hoenn's economy?" I continued without letting him attempt to answer. "And I only did that because I had to, and now I don't. So I've gone straight." I gave a thumbs-up for emphasis.

He seemed at a loss for words.

"My turn to ask a question," said what's-her-name. "What were you doing out here?"

"Training," I answered. It was hard to tell if she was satisfied by the answer.

She looked at Angel. "Two more questions. Is your absol's fur as soft as it looks? And can I pet her?"

Now _those_ were the kinds of questions I wanted to hear. "Yes and if she'll let you. She's a little picky about who gets to touch her."

Angel was willing to oblige. She got to her paws, approaching what's-her-name (should I have asked for her name? Probably), and regarded her with a calm ruby gaze. What's-her-name slowly brought a hand to Angel's ruff, then started running her fingers through it with more confidence. Angel allowed it. I could trust this girl, then.

I returned my attention to Knight, whose icy blue gaze was uncomfortably fixed on me. "Someone so concerned about the _economy_ should be aware that staring is rude." Someone as rough around the edges as me explaining courtesy to anyone was probably a sign of the apocalypse, but nobody seemed willing to acknowledge this.

He blinked. "Are you by any chance related to an Anita Blackstone?"

The look on my face must have given me away because he said, "you're her son, aren't you?" He studied me more intensely. "I should've known when I first saw you. You look so much like her." His blue eyes narrowed. "Does she know you're a-"

"Knight," I said dangerously, " _drop it._ " Angel growled to emphasize my statement, startling what's-her-name.

He did. Maybe he was smarter than I thought.

I stood, looking at Angel. "Let's go. Lara's probably wondering what happened to us."

As I walked away, I heard Knight say, "alright then. See you around, Blackstone."

I raised a hand, flashing a gesture I had learned on the streets. The temptation to look over my shoulder and see his reaction was hard to resist, but I had somewhere to be. I heard his indignant voice. "He's impossible, Melody. I don't know why I try speaking to him." Despite my anger just a few moments ago, I had to stifle a laugh. His indignation was almost cute.

 _Mother would have something to say about this._ The thought came unbidden to my mind and I dismissed it immediately. Her opinion on my behavior wasn't exactly the most important thing in the world nowadays.

Suddenly, Angel broke into a run. The behavior was unusual, but knowing about the unique ability of her species, it'd be stupid to not run after her. She kept on without slowing until we were racing through the city, people moving out of our path without hesitation. Someone called out, "where's the fire?" I couldn't answer.

By the time Angel eased her pace and came to a halt, I was out of breath and slightly nauseous. An excited bark, followed by Angel's jubilant reply, told me that our timing was perfect. Lara and Sammy had come looking for us. Lara hugged me from behind. "Thank goodness you're okay!" I wanted to ask why I wouldn't be, but I still could hardly breathe and her arms around my chest weren't helping.

I passed out a few seconds later.


End file.
